So? What would be YOUR last meal?
When restaurants were still open, I asked a restaurateur if it would be a good idea to run specials of last-meal requests of death-row inmates. He didn't answer me.
Since the USA is one of the few countries to actually do executions, we are one of the few countries to look at last meals.
Yet another reason I love living in Michigan where we have NEVER had the death penalty. It's a sick 'punishment' and we're in poor company internationally.
3
One former co-worker, who had done time, would occasionally come out with, appropriate to what he only knew, 'The condemned man ate a hearty meal.'
I'd use my last meal to put a stay on my execution.
My last meal request would be a McDonalds Shamrock Shake and a McRib. The prison would be stuck waiting for years for those two to appear on the Mickey D's menu at the same time.
5
I want my last meal to be a shot of bourbon and one perfect little strawberry.
1
In John Waters' hilarious movie 'Female Trouble', the star (Dawn Davenport, played by Divine), asks for 'two veal cutlets' for her last meal.
Ricky Ray Rector told the guard he was saving his pie for later. That is the definition of an optimist.
3
As one who fervently supports the elimination of the death penalty, the whole concept of a death-row inmate's "last meal" pushes the boundaries of absurdity. If the reason for execution is "justice" for the heinousness of the crimes committed, then why should the convict enjoy any culinary pleasures as part of his/her punishment? Either you believe in barbarity or you don't.
1
Death penalty seems a repulsive throwback to more barbaric times. And yet, life imprisonment seems like a worse punishment, at least to me. Nothing left to you for the rest of your life but bad food, miserable surroundings, perpetual discomfort, your only company vicious thugs or brutal prison guards, visitors trailing off to nobody at all. What a choice!
3
Who could eat at a time like this?
3
An Oregon artist has memorialized this subject in an ongoing project: https://greenjulie.com/last-supper/
2
2nd try to get comment posted.
This article is grossly offensive. The word 'fascination' in the headline? Add the word morbid. The Times should apologize for the article to the public.
Executing people is a relic of a past age that civilized nations have rejected.
Amnesty International and other web sites reveal:
“Today, 106 countries (the majority of the world’s states) have turned their backs on the death penalty for good. Those that continue to execute are a tiny minority standing against a wave of opposition.”
Most countries, including almost all First World nations, have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice.
The U.S. is the only Western country to still use the death penalty.
Most recently, Washington, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, and Illinois have all abolished capital punishment. Florida is one of 30 states that have the death penalty."
The NYT should write an article on why so many countries stopped executions and why the US still has them.
Then relate that to other ways the US differs from the modern world---in our criminal justice system, our % of citizens in prison, and our leaving multi millions of citizens without access to medical care.
Must be some connection why we're the lone hold out.
6
This article is repugnant in every way. A news outlet profiting from anything related to the immoral act of execution is itself abhorrent, but to make light of the kinds of things people might do for comfort or dignity is incomprehensibly cruel.
1
Death Row is what it’s peculiarly American
1
execution makes a killer of the executioner, which is a terrible thing to do to someone (even if they volunteer)
but any empathy towards murderers, rapist and torturers is entirely misdirected
I didn't want to comment, but how about the Holy Eucharist?
@Chrisinauburn Because all death row inmates share the same religion?
2
I'm glad you quoted Michael Rushford when he specified a percentage of the American population that support the death penalty because his assertion is higher than most studies would support.
Further, support among Americans is down nearly 30 points in the past 25 years. Further, support worldwide is significantly down as well. Barbarism--at least in this regard--is on the wane.
"The obvious candidates — anyone on the edge of death — for last meals are equally less-than-suited to eating them."
It may be, though, that this weird obsession has indeed made its way into other facets of American life and deeth. I have unfortunately vivid memories of the day my father, hospitalized with lung disease, was told that his condition was terminal (he died just three weeks later). But one memory is less painful and more bittersweet. After the doctor left the room, my mom and I sat on Dad's hospital bed and cried with him and talked it all over -- and then I put on my coat, walked out of the hospital, drove to one of his favorite seafood restaurants, and brought back bowls of the fish chowder he loved for us to share.
2
@gmg22 I always took my Mom out for a burger after her med appointments--largely palliative--even with dementia and lung cancer she understood "upscale burger place" and could eat eat me under the table.
Big metro area at height of burger craze!
1
Tofu and brown rice for me, washed down by spinach juice.
1
I, too, shared the public's fascination with last meals. So much so that I wrote a novel (The Last Suppers) set in 1950s Louisiana about a female prison cook obsessed with preparing the most meaningful final meals. I think the public will continue to be fascinated but our musings are conjecture only. We're not faced with imminent death when we discuss what we'd ask for.
1
What? No beer?
1
That feeling when you discover you share a favourite ice cream flavour with a man who blew up a federal building and killed 168 people.
5
How short-sighted of Texas to discontinue all final meals because of one idiot who ordered a lot and didn’t eat any of it. They’ll make it up by not housing the guy. Or just put a spending limit like $50 on any order. I’m pretty pro death penalty for wicked evil killers, but even I think they should have one last gastronomical request.
1
Those against the death penalty, in cases of undoubted guilt in adults, have never known the heinous nature of many criminals.
Were their victims given a last meal of their choice?
1
typo: analyzes, not analyses
Just the kind of article we all need to raise our spirits now. Thanks for that!
The fact that America still has death penalty is insane.
4
How was the song “Last Meal” by Asleep at the Wheel not mentioned in the article?
As a criminal justice activist, I was saddened to see this article about "last meals." Rather than focusing on the culinary wishes of (mainly black) men condemned to die at the hands of the state, could we instead be concerned and horrified that the death penalty is still imposed in thirty states?
5
Capital Punishment, a Peculiarly American Fascination
5
Socially, I’m a highly progressive liberal. I have also worked as a doctoral-level clinician rehabilitating criminal addicts with mental health issues for nearly half a century.
I believe that there should be a death penalty, but not how its currently being used, not without addressing the gross racial inequalities, and not without genuine rehabilitation and support programs which, frankly, do not exist in the US anywhere.
We should only be executing repeat violent offenders that have been offered genuine attempts at rehabilitation. First time offenders should never be executed, unless convicted of multiple violent crimes across years, ie serial rapists and serial killers. Perhaps mass murderers as well.
The public also needs to be aware that in nearly every case, the public failed these individuals when they were children. Failed to protect them, failed to provide for them, routinely exposing them to abuse and neglect through placement in poorly supervised foster care, half-way houses, etc. We are talking about situations of childhood abuse that most people would get sick reading. And this is in most cases, although not all.
.
1
@SMcStormy Blame it on society? Why not blame it on them, their children and all of their choices?
People make bad choices. Choices have consequences - good and bad. Those choices were not forced upon them.
1
@Glenn Thomas/What happens in people’s lives are a function of both individual psychology, individual genetics, various social influences and, obviously, free will.
That said, the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experiences_Study demonstrated how a wide variety of risk factors, when added up, can eventually become (nearly) fate, This was a longitudinal study, among the most definitive kinds of studies, involving nearly 20,000 participants. The study conclusively established staggering correlation (risk factors) for the development of physical and mental health issues based on adverse childhood experiences this includes things like racial discrimination, sexism, homophobia, being poor, etc.
This does not excuse bad behavior, criminal behavior and my primary post on this topic should demonstrate that I am hardly a bleeding heart on this matter (I support the death penalty).
But society playing a role is, in fact, good news. It means that we can do something about it through policy. For example, while Scandinavian countries still have the same problems we have, they have a fraction of them compared to us per capita.
America can do better, a lot better.
.
1
People eat their last meal every day and don't even realize it's their last.
9
How about the last meal of those they murdered? While I am opposed to the death penalty, our society’s morbid fascination with the last hours of these convicted felons is misplaced.
4
@AOH What about innocent persons that number by dozens who went on the chair ?
You're misplaced as well.
The New York Times should be commended for bringing fresh attention to this disturbing topic. However, it is also important to recognize the work that has already been devoted to the last meals of convicts on death row, as several other posters have noted. In particular, the seminal work of conceptual artist, Toby Lee Greenberg, should be mentioned. In 1995, Toby Lee Greenberg exhibited and copyrighted “The Last Meal,” a work that poignantly includes a set of china dinner plates and a leather-bound menu, detailing the last meals requested by convicts on death row. In particular, her inclusion of the meal eaten by a black, brain-damaged convict, Ricky Ray Rector - who misunderstood the finality of his situation and saved his dessert for later - serves as a harrowing comment on the injustice of execution in the United States. For those interested, Ms. Greenberg’s work may be found at https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AOIISEAGA2DLJO8M.
2
I wonder, did anyone send it back because they didn't like the way it was cooked?
2
Too macabre and disturbing even for my relatively hearty personality. Even for the worst criminals, I just can't get behind the Death Penalty and therefore the whole subject is just as unpalatable as the picture of that steak that was served to Ted Bundy looks.
3
I can't help myself to feel Americans once again redeem themselves too easily when they commit a collective (state) crime by morphing a barbarian custom into a sacred act by calling it "Last Supper".
It show how much it is difficult for USA to come to terms with its two major contradictions : institutionalized racism (and all other prejudices) and death penalty.
3
I'd go with a quart of gin.
4
I didn't finish the article because, frankly, I just don't care what convicted killers do in their final moments. Did any of them offer their victims a comfortable last meal, or any final courtesy, before savagely and pointlessly ending their lives?
I think not. Not wasting any more time or brain cells here.
3
Beyond the fact that America still engages in the barbaric and immoral practice of capital punishment (with a judicial that is sometimes obscenely flawed) I find the whole discussion about last meals, and such, ridiculous and macabre. Are we all amused yet.
1
What an appalling commentary on our culture that this book has found traction and sales. What's next? A catalogue of toys the lonely immigrant children, separated from their parents, pine for in their filthy holding cells? Have we no decency left?
Er, it’s “uniquely American” because all the civilized countries got rid of the death penalty. Hint: that means it’s not something to be proud of.
1
mention should be made of the "Last Supper" series by artist Julie Green. She has painted hundreds of plates with images of the last meals of the condemned.
2
What, no vegans on death row?
1
I wonder if what’s shocking some people about this article is that in their subconscious they can’t figure out how those sentenced for their crimes were capable of finding the good in ice cream —in food— and yet they weren’t able to find it in their fellow human beings.
In days of old here in London.The condemned were taken by procession to the gallows at Tyburn(Marble Arch).The gallow days were public events and attracted large crowds.Before the long drop hanging method you could pay the hangman a fee to enable to hasten your relatives death by pulling on the feet.All pubs passed by this grim procession were obliged to pass free booze to the poor unfortunates.Most condemned had to be carried to the noose .
Booze or food.
Give me booze and lots of it.
11
It seems to be a well-established fact asserted for several decades that I can remember, that the death penalty has never, ever served as a deterrent. All that remains in terms of its purpose is revenge; but whose? By all reports I have heard, it provided no satisfaction for the aggrieved. So it all seems pretty pointless.
On the other hand, who wants to pay for the lifetime of incarceration? We are not left with any better options other than gun control and that riles up so-called, "firearms rights" activists who refuse to understand the meaning of the words in the Constitution or else choose to ignore those words.
The Constitution specifically refers to the right to own firearms in a, "well-regulated militia."
There's no reference to a, "firearm in every pocket" or a, "firearm in every home." It specifically refers to its use in a, "well-regulated militia." And many of these people consider themselves "literalists" in terms of constitutional interpretation like the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. What is their point?
Artist Julie Green has been documenting last meals on white plates for decades, a vivid condemnation of the death penalty.
Besides the sheer barbarism of state-sponsored murder:
The death penalty purports to swap the life of a victim for that of the (alleged, sometimes mistakenly convicted) killer. If a loved one of mine were a victim, I’d never think their killer’s life was equally valuable, but that’s what the death penalty achieves: victim/perpetrator parity.
1
Death. I can recall my first childhood confrontation with death. My great-grandmother had passed and I was around 7 and I had repeated questions to which my father could only answer with a hard, cold reference to the finality of it. My father realized I was having difficulty coming to terms with that.
After a few moments of silence, he made one last attempt to console me and said, "Glenn, death can't be all that bad." I responded, "No?" Then he smiled and said, "No. Have you ever heard of anyone coming back to complain!"
2
My last meal would be beef with a side of carbs and a milkshake.
I can't read this article. It makes me cry. I am exhausted by the barbarism of the United States. Canada doesn't have capital punishment and I am a dual citizen.
1
While I realize that the unexamined life is not worth living, I find this mirthful focus on the last meals of the condemned to be macabre and disturbing. There is nothing entertaining or amusing about the eating habits of people who are soon to be killed by the state.
1
I wonder what the purpose of the "last meal" is. Is to make the state appear more civilized or is it to give comfort to the condemned in their final hours?
As someone who believes capital punishment is wrong, I do not believe food does anything to absolve the state of what it is about to do.
On the other hand, I also do not believe anyone who is guilty of the heinous crimes for which they have been convicted deserves any special dietary considerations, whether they are going to be executed or not.
Personally, I think Incarceration without parole is to be preferred. However, if the state is determined to execute people, the condemned should receive their usual fare and nothing more.
3
@Sid, I think the practice is just just based in tradition. There is precedent in England, and something similar even going back centuries in France. I’ve seen, in movies and tv series, military prisoners offered last meal before execution.
My last meal would definitely be a toss between pizza or an eclectic array of chips (Doritos, Cheetos, Popcorn, Tostitos, etc.)
Has there been any research on the effect of large meals before getting the chemicals if the injection? I mean, does digesting large meals makes it less or more painful or affects how long it takes for the drugs to start taking effect.
7
The Texas dept of Justice had(or maybe still does) a full list of all last meals. Most of the meals were fairly basic and non-epicurean, reflecting the humble origins of the departed.
2
Last meals may be a peculiar American fascination but your missing the point. Death row, peculiar to only the USA in our Western world, is the real morbid fascination held by a nation which in so many ways still lives in a past century.
14
What a morbid subject focusing on the last moments of a human life and the way we might somehow assuage our role in taking it away. The US would do well to join the many nations who have long ago outlawed the death penalty. NYT would better serve it's readers and the public good presenting information that informs and educates readers about this ineffective and reprehensible punishment that does nothing to deter crime. Time is better spent looking to Sister Helen Prejean and others advocating to abolish the death penalty - let us spend our time wisely - value life and elevate our society.
7
@ Caroline..do away with the death penalty? I must disagree, and I also disagree with offering these “people” a last meal of any kind. Men like Timothy McVeigh who took the lives of 168 innocent people got to eat a bowl of ice cream? What he should have gotten was gutted and served his viscera on a stick. Sorry but all I can think about is the front page of a newspaper with a firefighter holding the lifeless body of a sweet two year old girl, Bailey. I will never forget that image for as long as I live. No, not only shouldn’t the death penalty be abolished, it should be advertised. If you senselessly kill, rape women and children, and somehow manage to get away with it and do it again and again, you deserve to die. Sorry. No ice cream for you.
1
Has anyone else thought that the restriction on the last cigarette was an oxymoron?: we want to protect your health so we can execute you.
12
My client James Clarke was executed by lethal injection in 1996 for murdering his adopted parents. I kept him company in his jail cell as he ate his last meal in the hours leading up to his midnight execution. I remember that he had fried chicken and french fries, a milkshake, coffee, and a whole apple pie. He ate everything, including the entire apple pie. He ate slowly, and would pause every 20 minutes or so when anxiety gripped him. During every one of those pauses, I thought he had eaten all he could but he would regroup mentally after a little conversation and go at it again. He finished the meal about 45 minutes before the execution at which point we said our goodbyes and I was ushered out of his cell. Aside from the small pleasure the meal provided to him, I always felt that the meal helped distract his thoughts from the terrible, final event he was about to experience.
88
Overwhelmed by your comments. Sadly your client knew what he was facing. The last meal seems to be a symbol of comfort. Perhaps when he last felt loved or secure. Perhaps when his Mama cooked his favorite meal. This article is heartbreaking to me. Many of these men were once little boys looking for love, looking for approval, looking for acknowledgement.
31
@Jerome M Capone
Everyone who has ever lived has also faced the "ordeal" of death. And the vast majority were not double murderers.
5
@Jerome M Capone, from Wiki: “ James B. Clarke Jr. was...executed in April 1996... for the murder of his adoptive parents. Clarke confessed to the crime. He was motivated by a desire for the couple's life insurance. The murders took place...one month after he had been released on parole for an earlier conviction. Clarke had served 21 years of a 30-year sentence for his attempted slaying of a 3-year-old girl in 1973, but in spite of his failure to participate in rehabilitation and repeated discipline by prison authorities for fighting, he was released for good behavior.“
I would not want his mind distracted from “the terrible event he was about to experience.” He should have been left to dwell on it. Your client was a monster. How could you sit with him through a last meal?
I am against the death penalty, for ethical reasons. However, I feel that some people are evil and should finish their lives in prison.
2
I appreciated this piece. Seems to me, as a boy seeing the old movies, somebody about to be executed was either real guilty or “not right,” and likely guilty. Even though he may have looked like he enjoyed the meal, broad smiles and all, he always went to the chair slowly, reluctantly. As as a kid, the notion of having just about anything you wanted to eat, as a reward for accepting your impending violent death, was twisted. But maybe that was justice’s way of making things even . . . Naaaaaah.
1
Ted Bundy's last meal is a coronary attack on a plate. This article is morbid and serves no purpose other than ghoulish curiosity and the continuation of capital punishment which should be done away with.
2
@David
Are you serious? A 'coronary attack?' The man is about to be executed, and you think he should be worried about the long-term effects of cholesterol?
2
Would people care what they ate if they are reminded of what the guilty did with crime scene photographs?
8
If this was their regular diet, they'd be dead soon enough.
3
Article on last meals states “and here is the last meal of saccho and Vanzetti” but no meal listing, editing or writing problem?
I managed to stay awake for the movie when I was a kid, at least give me the promised information, the link doesn’t provide it either.
1
Their meal is in the slide show
5
Some entrepreneur will start a company called The Last Supper, offering delivery of meals a lot more sophisticated than these choices, ordered by the inmates themselves on smuggled cell phones.
2
Why stop at the last meals prepared for the condemned? The last meals of John Q Public as reported in the obit should be equally of interest.
2
The best commentary on the last meal is by Asleep at the Wheel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzuRCeq8uBk
1
The fact that we even ask them what they want shows that society knows the death penalty is wrong. It’s an odd sort of confession if you think about it.
14
In Japan, a cake, a bottle of wine, and a pack of cigarettes. The default end hour deal. And you never know the date of the drop. It’s a ....surprise.
7
If on Death Row I were stuck/I would order Peking Duck/Hop shoots salad with a dab/of the freshest horseshoe crab/With Chateau Lafite I'd toast/haunch of prime saola roast/For dessert I think I might/have a souffle, very light/If it takes a day or eight/I'll be happy just to wait.
9
Thanks NYT
You just ruined my supper with this incredibly insensitive read.
4
I can understand why the meals are so big - just don't know when you be able to eat again.
5
I don't agree that these meals are self-indulgent, even the high calorie, because they must come from the prison menu. I'd order duck a l'orange, fois gras, caviar, etc. They'd say sorry pal.
And the certainly don't assist in keeping the death penalty alive.
1
Hauntingly sad. These prisoners have killed...but guilty verdicts can be wrong...so we kill them. Offering a last meal of comfort food just adds to the horror.
17
Most people near the end of their lives can eat neither very much nor many different kinds of food. The last meal of a condemned person reveals how very alive she is at the time of execution.
36
@Sarah
Brilliantly put.
Just make you question what’s happening.
Thank you.
3
Thank you.
2
The main purpose of the last meal is to make us feel better about the fact that we're killing someone--an act we know (but refuse to acknowledge) is deeply uncivilized.
We like the idea of a moment of generosity, of humanity, toward someone whose humanity we have resolutely decided not to recognize. (Generally we do this by claiming that the condemned person has himself erased his own humanity--as if that were actually possible to do.)
A smirking jokiness - on view in this article - is typically part of this grotesque game, and expresses a suppressed unease.
It should not need to be pointed out that Ricky Ray Rector "saved his dessert for later" because he was severely brain-damaged and didn't understand what was about to happen to him.
42
@Eve S.
Thank you for pointing out that Rector had the intellectual capacity of a young child. The comment about the pecan pie was gratuitous and showed a lack of knowledge and compassion.
1
Please be sure to recognize Julie Green's Last Supper Plate series, which she began in 1997. See the plates herehttps://greenjulie.com/the-last-supper-final-meals-of-death-row-inmates/
6
The whole concept of last meals is a grand, ham-handed attempt to add a veneer of phony thoughtfulness and compassion to what is, and will always be, the ultimate barbaric punishment.
And those authors and reporters who pay attention to, and publicize, all these pieces of toast and sausages are actually propping up what is actually a PR performance of bogus compassion, are the ultimate suckers.
If you want to bring aspects of capital punishment out of the shadows, ditch the steak and eggs and show a video of a prisoner gasping for breath while he urinates in his pants.
18
not really an american focus,, just the prison system.. don't place that on us.
2
@cait farrell As the writer notes, the last meal and its peculiar level of documentation seems to be distinctly American.
2
I’d order roast bald eagle. Since it is protected, it wouldn’t be served. Since I wouldn’t get my last meal, they couldn’t execute me and I’d get a permanent stay of execution.
Seems reasonable.
10
To not name their victims is a perverse, sick act of denial.
And we know denial is wrong, right?
4
I find this essay trite and inappropriate.
And highly insensitive.
If not to the condemned people themselves then certainly to their families. The writer should be ashamed of himself as should the Times for trivializing what must be hours of utter horror.
8
In the movie "Dead Man Walking," Matthew Poncelet, a composite character based on two death row prisoners counseled by Sister Helen Prejean, holds up a shrimp at his last meal to explain how much he enjoyed it because it was the first time he had eaten one. Sister Helen objected on the grounds that it was inconceivable that anyone from Louisiana had never eaten shrimp, but Tim Robbins retained the scene due to his enjoyment of such "little incongruities." In fact, Robbins borrowed the idea from a BBC documentary in which a Mississippi death row inmate eating his last meal tells the warden he had never eaten shrimp.
4
There are some things to note about a couple of the photos. First, the condemned inmate intended for the single olive with the pit still in it to sprout from his body, growing an olive tree for peace. About the inmate who saved his pie for later, he was mentally disabled and almost certainly didn't understand what exactly he was facing.
25
I saw a very interesting art installation at the American Museum of Ceramic Arts in Pomona, CA. The artist hung in large walls recreated ceramic plates with dates and names (or “anonymous” for unreleasable names) of every executed inmate as a commentary on executions. Very impactful and heartbreaking. I believe it was titled Last Meals.
4
As in everything, there's a Seinfeld reference here. Elaine discusses last meals based on the crime.
9
I remember the story of Velma Barfield who was the first woman executed after the death penalty was reinstated in 1984. She ordered a bag of Dipsy Doodles and a Co-Cola.
3
As someone who believes that the death penalty is the only sane and decent way to deal with someone who has deprived someone else of something irreplaceable (which is life), my suggestion would be that their last meal be the last meal that their victim had.
28
Nice guy....
4
@Travelers
You nailed it amigo.
2
I remember reading in the local newspaper almost sixty years ago the story of a double execution. Both of the condemned asked for steak, lobster, baked potato, salad, apple pie a la mode and bicarbonate of soda. I think that was my first experience of irony as tragedy.
3
@zevcohennyc In the much shorter version of this piece that introduces Mr Rayner's book, he does note the irony of condemned men asking for diet pop with their last meal. (They're not going to gain any more weight.)
I wish I hadn't read that McVeigh asked for mint chocolate chip ice cream. (It's written here like that was all he ate.) Because now I will go buggy wondering WHAT BRAND? of mint/choc chip. That's because there is really good stuff -- Haagen-Dazs -- and there is terrible stuff, like the MCC packed for supermarket chains. Anybody know?
3
What bothers me is, I like mint chocolate chip ice cream!
The good stuff, not the cheap.
3
@Spike well, he grew up in Western NY so my guess is he asked for his childhood ice cream brand, Perry's. The flavor is called Mint-ting-aling :(
It IS good, tho
2
In an asterisk to the photograph of Ricky Ray Rector’s last meal, the author notes that Rector asked to save his pecan pie “for later.” While this comment might seem to imply that Rector was referring to a life after death or was simply expressing spite, this is not the case. Rector was profoundly brain damaged after shooting himself in the head — essentially lobotomizing himself — following the crime he was put on death row for (killing a sheriff). He did not understand that he was about to be executed or what death meant. He didn’t even remember the crime he was executed for. He asked to save his pie for later because he did not understand he wouldn’t be coming back from the death chamber.
61
Inmates spend so long on Death Row that I would assume they would be somewhat resigned to their fate by the time the day came, even if they were still nervous about it. So it makes sense that they would request comfort food. Even nursery food. I’d probably be in the grilled cheese sandwich and cake category. Or a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Maybe inmates can’t specify all brands, though. Apparently, KFC is sanctioned.
But the guy who ordered one olive, with pit? Died a jokester, I guess. One wonders why.
And today I learned that the firing squad still exists in the United States (just Oklahoma, now). Horrendous.
1
@Passion for Peaches
Although visually striking, hanging and firing squad are the fastest and most humane way to go.. The Oklahoma shooters are issued rifles knowing one rifle is chambered with a blank round to alleviate guilt .. "Perhaps I didn't kill the guy..."
1
Aaron
Only in America,would people consider hanging or shooting a person to be a humane act.
9
Question,did any individual get his last meal and got a reprieve then was able to digest the feast?
4
There's catch here.. you can only order what the kitchen has on hand... I highly doubt prisons would allow an Uber Eats driver in the front gate.. but I could be wrong.
@Aaron I know that some prison systems would try to accommodate an inmate's special request unless it was difficult to obtain. By now it may be that most systems have moved away from that practice.
1
@DaveB It is. Rayner notes in his book (and I suspect it was trimmed from this article) that some states have limited the cost of a condemned man's last meal to $20. (And as he did note here, some have eliminated the practice entirely due to cost.)
The food selections don't illuminate much of anything about the killers. The banality of evil.
5
You forgot to tell your readers about the guy who told the guard he was leaving his dessert for later -- and somehow Vanzetti's choice went astray.
2
Back ribs work for me.
1
Hollywood drama and wild-west ritual is all it is. "let's be nice to 'im, before we kill him". Also, alcohol or tranquilizers are not permitted "to make sure he is forced to dwell on his impending demise with his wits kept completely about him, and not in a stupor, which might indeed reduce his mental anguish, somewhat". What does any of this have to do with justice? It's pagan theater if you ask me.
6
Interesting. You might wonder about the last meals of the people these murderers killed. Not a mention of the victims here, who certainly were not give a chance to choose a 7000-calorie meal before they were dispatched by the inmates, and were probably raped or tortured beforehand too.
Funny how the media is in the habit of romanticizing the murderers and forgetting about who the murdered. That's apparently an American tradition too.
35
@Chuck French
Thank you Chuck.....psychopathic killers.
You nailed it.
4
@Chuck French - You’re assuming they’re all guilty. In America’s broken criminal justice system isn’t that rather naive?
1
Does anyone else remember the story about the condemned prisoner who ordered his last meal and finished only a portion of it.
The guard asked, "Why don't you finish your cake?"
The prisoner replied, "I am saving it for later."
Cheers
2
as sick as it is, to execute human beings - as if kant, marx, adorno etc. have never existed.. to read about this sick part of science that obviously suffers a lack of subjects to examine is just simply respectless and cruel. and then these comments here: recipies and people's allergies. great. it's like baudrilliard claimed: the age of simulation, where everything has no connection to reality anymore. insane world
2
By the time I was ready to be put to death, my time to meditate and commend my soul to god would be about over, sooooo: medium rare strip steak with H 57 sauce, mini tater tots extra crispy with catsup, buttered spinach, sliced tomatoes with vinegar and salt, black cherry ice cream hot fudge sundae with whipped cream, ice water, and a pot of black coffee. Are they required to give you enough time to finish the meal?
4
Stupidity is often the sole reason for someone to have 15 seconds of fame. But this is the worst I’ve seen for a long time. Apparently there’s a niche market for this: good for them.
2
A line from a death row inmate I heard from the podcast ear-hustle :” they are fattening us for the kill”!
It's interesting that the Dr. Pepper in the meal of Teresa Lewis seems to have a smiley face.
1
It is morbid and I think I would have lost my appetite - or come to some acceptance and enjoy the last pleasures you can have? It's weird. Not to make light of the death penalty (which I oppose) but thinking of the absurdity of granting a last meal I think of the Dave Chapelle sketch where his death row inmate figured out that as long as he could keep eating the all you can eat buffet for his last meal he would be good.
2
Given the grim institutional menu provided to prisoners, I imagine these meals represent a hankering for palatable, however unhealthy, food options available only to the free, as well as a last, nostalgic, chance to connect with life on the outside. I oppose the death penalty because it has erased the lives of enough wrongfully convicted inmates to make the entire process suspect. The "Last Meal" tradition seems especially barbaric. Perhaps I'm a ghoul but I found the granularity of the subject riveting. I bet that even those who criticized the author read his entire story.
6
"Last meals" is about as morbid a subject as can be imagined, in as much as the purpose of eating in the first place is to sustain life. The whole concept is rather pointless, in that consideration, other than an exercise in the sensory pleasures of eating.
Were I confronted with an imminent death, such as by execution, I think I spend my last hours fasting, chanting, mediating, purifying body and soul. There would be no time for the distraction of eating or indulgence in other mortal pleasures.
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@Michael B
While I mostly agree with you, I also imagine that—[having never gone YEARS without access to my favorite foods], having the opportunity to taste and experience something that felt like ‘home’, might possibly be part of the journey.
Is it ‘purifying’? I don’t know.
Not in a traditional sense, of course.
But being faced with your own mortality, with such a definitive ending—after years of generalized scarcity—I can imagine that one last meal, of your choosing, might assist in allowing you to be at peace.
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@Michael B
I see you've never had a Tommyburger.
38
@mja
Alas and alack!
This gastronomic extravaganza has unfortunately escaped my palate thus far, so I do have something to live for. Although I once lived in suburban L.A. as a schoolkid, my family moved away before I was old enough to sample many of the local delights. But never fear -- it's on my bucket list.
6
This does seem uniquely American.
I'm old enough to remember executions in the UK [1]. IIRC there was none of this 'special meals' fandango and the condemned were offered standard prison fayre. Aside from any gallows confessions (and there were plenty made), details of the execution were not usually released. From the autobiographies of several English state pathologists (and it was they who were tasked with performing the post-execution autopsies), the deceased's stomach was usually empty of any contents - so they hadn't had much appetite, anyway.
The US is also an outlier as the only nation that claims to be both free and democratic as well as socially progressive and yet retains capital punishment. A 'western' country, too.
[1] The last British execution occurred in 1964. People were being sentence to death for terrorist crimes in Northern Ireland as late as 1973 although all were reprieved.
148
The USA is a religious country, dominated, in many states, by the 'good ole' time' Christianity of the Old Testament ( ie, pre Christian). An eye for an eye, in these quarters, reigns supreme. Strange therefore that Trump hasn't attended any executions to curry favour with them. No doubt he would attempt to decide the menu.
31
@nolongeradoc Japan also has capital punishment, so we're not the only country that sees ourselves as free and democratic that still carries it on.
(I don't say that to defend the practice, just to clarify. I won't get into my own messy views on this topic...)
14
@sss Japan, I believe, doesn't tell the victim when they are going to be killed (Hate the euphemism executed). So i suppose it's moot there.
7
Years ago, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco put on an outdoor exhibit about what death row inmates requested as their last meals. As I recall, one man asked for the Sunday breakfast that his mother made him as a boy. It was a poignant reminder that, long before their crimes, death row inmates were children with a different kind of promise.
376
In 2015 I saw Julie Green’s ( of Oregon State) exhibit The Last Supper. Final requests ( not always fulfilled) painted on old china plates, chilling, and very sad.
Were they all guilty? Given US Justice, probably not. Were some mentally ill? Yes highly likely. Is this the best America wants to do? Obviously.
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@Judith Kozloff - "Were some mentally ill? Yes highly likely. "
Absolutely no question about it.
And some didn't understand what was happening. Like Ricky Ray Rector, who put aside the dessert from his last meal "for later".
29
Many were likely low IQ individuals. Texas executed an inmate with a 67 IQ
22
I would contest the accuracy of the early statement that these prisoners' stories, culinary or otherwise, started at the crime(s) for which they were convicted and sentenced. Rather, I suspect that their food choices were based on how they ate throughout their lives, from childhood -- or wished they could have eaten, hence the lobster and steak choices -- just as their crimes were possibly a result of their entire lives. Do any of the papers cited go beyond the "what" of the meals to the "why"? Not easy research to do, as it would require sociology and criminology as well as culinary study. But that would be the only thing fascinating to me.
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Trump’s daily diet would totally fit among those!
Everyone has their own perspective and their own needs to speak to with this last human gesture. I’d be curious what the different cooks thought of their role in this process.
1
Reminds me of the Bruce Jay Friedman short story about how a French chef has to come out of retirement when a prisoner requests "Casserole de Langue de Sharpe's Grysbok" for his last meal.
1
Not too many vegans here, I see. Perhaps a hint that many death row inmates might have had fewer such choices throughout their whole lives. Perhaps live and let live would have served us all better in the end.
1
Having spent my adult life in Federal law enforcement, I have visited several death rows (Federal in Terre Haute, Huntsville, Texas, Oklahoma, California and a few others) to debrief inmates
Everyone of the people I interviewed would cut your throat in a heartbeat and never think twice about it. Can you say psychopath/sociopath? They didn't get to death row by accident. They put themselves there.
Too bad they didn't offer these courtesies to their deceased victims who died horrific deaths. This is an administrative policy that needs to end once and for all. Save the tax $$$.
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@Supreme Comandante "Save the tax $$$."
Because final meals are so expensive?
8
Feeding before killing seems to have a long history. Lindow Man had an undigested meal in him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindow_Man
3
These photos of animal flesh and secretions disgust me. Killing animals to satisfy the palates and appetites of psychopaths is an abomination. Let them choose from a menu of plant options since they've by and large already caused so much violence and suffering.
7
If I was getting the electric chair I would eat as much unpopped popcorn as I could swallow
36
I wonder if either of the gentlemen who ordered the Diet Coke next asked “Does this electric chair make me look fat?”
I do know women who would go to the chair still on their diet...and that is tragic...but I think most men would be thinking 'does this chair make my junk look big.'
2
As an aside; that authorities prefer the euphemism lethal injection for the act of poisoning is no reason the NYT should follow suit.
2
Really perverse NYT, especially at this moment in time. How about a side of coronavirus?
3
I could have done without this article. I shouldn’t have even opened it. Wonder if the NYT would like to write an addendum documenting the last meal choices for those who are now considered to be likely wrongly convicted and executed.
6
Time to do away with the last meal nonsense of special orders, etc. Water should be enough.
3
Well, given that we’re now in a zombie apocalypse, I think the answer is pretty obvious: braaaaaaains!!!
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A female artist already made this project years ago, Freya Powell. Great job nytimes. Ugh.
3
I would rather sympathize with murder VICTIMS.
Crime is one of the few areas in which I part company with the liberals.
13
This is morbidly fascinating!
5
Yes but that doesn't look like KFC to me.
I can't believe that someone was executed by firing squad in 2010.
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Probably quicker than most other forms in the US, if the marksmen are good
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@Amanda Executed by any means. Appalling.
Isn’t this fetishizing death?
Just a few thoughts.
I notice the total absence of alcohol from any of these meals. Are beers and wines forbidden?
Especially when I remember Mr. Gary Gilmore, executed by--now who was it? The state of Utah I think.
And he requested a six-pack of Coors beer. These he quaffed one at a time, the turned to his guards. "Okay," he said. "Let's do it."
They did. All those guns were loaded.
(Except one. Members of the firing party are not TOLD which one of them fired blanks. This to guard against unavailing posthumous regret.)
Oscar Wilde's famous poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" features a prisoner under sentence of death. The poet speaks of this man imperturbably drinking "his quart of beer" day by day.
Now alcohol was assuredly NOT served to your average inmates in British Victorian prisons.
I infer that, in that man's case, they made an exception.
NEW YORKER cartoon: guard running after some attendant wheeling an elaborate meal down a prison corridor.
"Stop! He's been reprieved."
Sorry.
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@Susan Fitzwater I'd ask for a can of Billy Beer, which would add a few weeks to my life as this brand was made in the 70's or early 80's.
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@Susan Fitzwater
Anyone who's done any shooting knows that there is virtually no recoil from a blank round vs. a live one.
The rifleman who had that blank round knew it the moment he pulled the trigger, heard the bang, but felt no recoil.
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@Is Eddie Murphy once did an SNL skit in which his final request was to sing “100,000 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”— and when no reprieve was granted, he yelled “one more time!”
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Several comments have noted the meal is part of the U.S. execution ritual, and others have mentioned their own preference for communion.
The meal and execution are allegorically almost the complete opposite of communion/crucifixion: the sinner dying for only his own sins, the meal to symbolize the life he is leaving, not that ahead.
Especially in the modern U.S. where a few states do most of the executions, and few enough to make them spectacles. Defenders of the death penalty tend to depict the condemned as the personification of evil who is not a human like the rest of us.
Nothing emphasizes that the meal is not the individual's choice more than the widespread practice of disallowing alcoholic beverages to accompany it.
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@grennan Execution in the US is the modern form of human sacrifice, hence all the ritual and drama.
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I would flip a coin between 1) a South Indian thali from Saravanaa Bhavan in New York, a slice of key lime pie, and a cortado or 2) collard greens, green beans, fried green tomatoes, cole slaw, mash potatoes, corn bread, and a sweet tea.
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Your second option sounds perfect.
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Having had the thali meal several times from said Saravana Bhawan, any day that! But then, from death row? I wouldn’t know! Not with any degree of certainty!
4
TDCJ policy allowed only ingredients on hand to be used for preparing last meals. No takeout.
Chicken enchiladas would be at the top of my list with refried beans and some red rice. Perhaps some Mexican grilled corn on the side.
Then at the end of the meal, some Churros with chocolate sauce.
If you are about to die, it would be good to get a taste of Heaven before you get there.
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My gut tells me the food wasn't nearly as appetizing as it appears in these images. I doubt the prison staff go out of there way to make these meals that good.
Bad fried chicken is a terrible way to go out . . .
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Maybe that’s the point? Throwing up your dinner while being shot isn’t so bad as just being shot. At least there’s a distraction.
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Such a fascinating and creepy slideshow!!! (Great photography and love The Typewriter font.)
Oddly enough, I’ve thought about this many times in my own life and have asked most of my closest friends during dinner, “What would you eat for your Last Supper, if you could choose?” (No, they are not Death Row inmates.) Their answers give me insights into their favorite foods and personalities. We have gone out to eat these exact meals or I have prepped these foods for them. Why wait until the Hour of our Death?
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As someone who spent 40 years on and off the diet rollercoaster I feel I have had a lifetime of last meals. Not one of them hit the spot. Perhaps death would have made it better?
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Texas used to do this and their are stories of odd requests that would give most people indigestion. That ended in 2011 when death row inmate Lawrence Russel Brewer ordered a huge meal and then said he wasn't hungry and didn't eat it.
State Senator John Whitmire complained "It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It's a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim." The last meal request was soon stopped and now they get whatever everyone else in the unit is having.
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As a political aside, I must say it's extremely telling that most Republicans would have no problem what-so-ever in using tax dollars to offer a murderer a final meal, but offering that same food to innocent school children in need is considered a waste of those same dollars. Such is the incomprehensible moral flexibility that also informs the Republican notion that life is "extremely precious" - until it's actually viable.
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@Chicago Guy
Actually, despite your incorrect assessment of Republicans, they do support school meal programs.
Unlike Democrats and ‘progressives,’ though, who think every problem is a nail with money as the hammer, Republicans believe — correctly — that child nutrition is mostly a parental function, not that of the State.
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yet another opportunity to marvel at US barbarism, this is not about an individual prisoner and the almost quaint notion of a last meal. If you think just a little beyond this meal, imagine what is going through a person's mind as they are about to be murdered by the state. Dostoevsky described the condemned person's last ride to the gallows, how every moment was almost infinite, this seems an unendurable torture and it's normalized here. I also remember Bill Clinton going back to Arkansas to oversea the killing of Ricki Lee Rector, who had so little concept of what was happening that he left his dessert until he came back from "the meeting."
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@Rickibobbi
They’re not being murdered by the state.
Justice is being correctly applied.
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I think it was Nora Ephron who said, You don't know what meal is going to be your last, so make sure each meal is a good one.
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The last meal is the only acknowledgement of human dignity the state will give the condemned during the entire barbaric process of capital punishment and this restaurant critic treats it like a whimsical archaic tradition. Awful stuff.
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There's a strange irony to capital punishment: people who are most enthusiastic about the death penalty for "them" tend to favor extreme leniency for "us."
So, for example, a Navy Seal convicted of war crimes was given Presidential clemency -- and even had his rank restored.
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I find the subject matter of this article gross and macabre. It is like a crowd assembling to watch an execution.
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This is interesting, but I think the fascination is much deeper. While the author does not analyze the practice itself, one could say that offering a meal to a person about to die is very ironic. They clearly do not need a meal as their need for energy is at an end. So why do it? The practice points to a strange sympathy. This meal is not about a need for calories. It is about allowing pleasure to those society has deemed monstrous. So, what is behind that? Why is there a practice to sympathize with murderers and rapists? How strange! It points to the limits of condemnation, and a radical empathy.
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@Hope Kitts Denying inmates regular meals could constitute cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited by both the Bill of Rights and international law. Likewise, they are entitled to medical care. And while the “last meal” drama is disgusting, I hope all Americans would agree that giving food, medicine, etc to every inmate is appropriate, no matter what the sentence. I am a lifelong opponent of the death penalty and every other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment
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I am against the death penalty because it is unfairly applied. However, despite being far to the left on most issues, I think that some people deserve the death penalty. To give them any kind of elaborate meal is a disgrace. Think of the terror their victims felt.
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To what end is analyzing and exploring the last meals of death row inmates to a culture that sits back idly as its political institutions lack credibility and its leaders tell bold face lies and are not not held accountable? Are we wiser? The image rules America and substance has very little impact. I'm really flabbergasted how we would rather delve into subjects like this yet have no idea how the electoral college works. I can't.....
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A dying person's last dignity. Capital punishment is such an abomination, that the very least the victim can be granted is their wish for a delicious taste of whatever they wish. How anguishing it must me for them. My heart aches just trying to imagine what they are going through hours before their state sanctioned murder.
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@Kevin
Speaking of anguish and terror, I wonder about the anguish and terror and what went through the minds of the young girls Karla Homulka and John Bernardo raped and murdered.
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That any human being believes that s/he had the right to kill another human being deeply saddens me. These photos humanize people who have done terrible things. Unsettling indeed!
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@ Fintan This is why I am against the death penalty. Life without possibility of parole protects society without requiring us to kill the prisoner, in cold blood I might add.
This made me think of the short story "Last Requests" by Giles Smith, included in the collection Speaking with the Angel from Nick Hornby, told from the point of view of a prison cook who dealt with last meal requests.
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The trial and subsequent execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti is believed by many to have been a terrible miscarriage of justice, and the two men maintained their innocence until the end. I’m not sure how much choice they had for their last meal, but something about the simple, homely nature of what they ate in their last hours- soup, meat, toast and tea, speaks to me at least, of innocence.
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My "last meal" fantasy is to have 2 slices of good old US Southern bourbon "tipsy cake"and 30 minutes to let it settle in.
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Interesting article. Always wondered about this and noticed in movies many order steak or fried chicken.
For me: vegan. It's healthy and you'll live longer.
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I suspect that a lot of people who have expressed such vehement umbrage with the subject of this article have also found themselves slowing down when passing an ambulance on the highway...
Death is inherently interesting to anyone who understands that it is the very thing that gives life it's meaning. And for the mentally and morally stable, there is nothing "wrong", or "morbid", or "voyeuristic", or "pornographic" about it.
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I always feel sick to my stomach reading about last meals. I couldn't imagine actually being able to eat one in that situation.
Inflicting death on anyone is cruel and unusual - this attempt at gilding the macabre is just gross.
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@Megan I agree 100% with you and posted a similar comment on this thread.
One thing this voyeuristic account leaves out is that almost all of these death row meals - fried chicken, steak, buckets of ice cream - are ordered by people who are poor. Nowhere do I see oysters and champaign, sushi or truffles. That speaks volumes about justice in America.
5
I’m fairly affluent and I love fried chicken. This speaks to the notion of comfort food.
How can you draw conclusions about American justice from meal preferences?
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@Stefan Moore
Fried chicken and a decent steak are the finer things in life.
Oysters? Sushi? Meh... Food for a date to impress, not a last meal.
@Bruce J What I am attempting to get at is that the people who receive the death penalty are disproportionately poor and black and lacking money for expensive lawyers to get them off. I do not support the death penalty for anyone, but if there were more corporate criminals on death row you'd probably see different last meal orders (comfort food for folks like you aside)
3
This reminds me of the Movie Lincoln, when he was told by a by a client, a woman who killed her husband, I think in West Virginia, were she could get a good glass of water. He suggested Tennessee. I think it may not be what I want to eat but were I want to eat it.
Teresa Lewis' meal included a Dr Pepper, with a smiley face in the cup.
My favorite is the guy who ordered diet soda, an obvious believer in the after-life.
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@vincent Full sugar soda makes me sick, it is disgusting.
They should offer the same tradition to Presidential candidates: on Election Eve, the voters can learn what their favorite foods are.
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I don’t think I’d be able to eat my last meal knowing what came for dessert.
1
Fascinates me too. I'd have to have onion rings for starters....
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How do you think the victims families feel about this ?
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I guess we Americans have a greater consciousness of last meals because we execute so, so many more people than other countries do.
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The meals look good, but definitely not "to die for". ;-}
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When I was younger I had a taste (no pun intended) for this kind of thing. It was voyeuristic and titillating. But now, looking at the pathetic humanity evinced by the meals served to people condemned to die before the day ends, all I can do is reflect on the sin of america trying to make two wrongs into a right.
3
I especially liked the prisoners comment about his
pecan pie: I will save it for later.
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Let's not forget the role of Bill Clinton in regard to the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, who saved his pecan pie "for later." In a shameless act of pandering, he interrupted his presidential campaign to fly back to Little Rock and oversee the execution. This bit of political theater was a curtain-raiser to an act that culminated with the 1994 crime bill and the expansion of the carceral state, which he & the missus & allies like Sen. Biden justified with rhetoric about "super predators."
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@jizungu The death penalty is a horror. So is the Iraq war and taking immigrant children from their parents. When you find a perfect presidential candidate who can actually get elected, please let the rest of us know.
5
Worth looking at this photo series that was done about 10 years ago that also documented the last meals of people on Death Row.
https://www.james-reynolds.com/last-suppers
1
For me: the drive-thru.
2
Chipped beef on toast.
It is barbaric for us to electively kill someone but first treat him, for a moment, as if we had any respect for his preferences or status as human. This practice, all of it, is disgusting. And I seriously doubt many of the condemned, facing death in hours, have any appetite whatsoever.
1
The NYT omitted the fact that Timothy Mcveigh killed 19 children All were very young. "Collateral Damage". Just like the 168 killed in total. Collateral Damage.
As with many explosive events, most of the 684 survivors were maimed, lost limbs, etc. when discussing an event of this magnitude, they should not be forgotten. Any questions?
9
Another unsettling view of our sick fascination with capital punishment in this country.
2
Thus would be an opportunity to try Japanese puffer fish
2
If I'm ever sentenced to death the answer is pretty simply.
I'll have the Namibian bullfrog, fugu sashimi, Shanghai blood oysters, Ackee as a side and a bottle of rum with hemlock to wash it all down. Oh.. and some white truffle ice cream. Why? If you're going to kill me anyway, why not? If the food doesn't kill me first, I've at least made the chef's life impossible.
2
I wonder what thought(s) entered the minds of the soon-to-be-executed as they consumed their very last mouthful, putting an end to this hopeless sensory diversion.
I would ask for a bag of corn kernels so that when my body is cremated, well, figure it out
5
The death penalty should be abolished. There are far to many errors.
2
The "last meal" seems to be an opportunity for the inmate to have one final "taste" (pun intended) of life, freedom, and/or humanity before they are to be executed. It's humane and sympathetic on one hand, and torturous on the other.
Las Vegas Buffet for me....
1
This theme appears in Mark Leyner’s caustic and hilarious “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist”: “...electric chairs, gas chambers, and firing squads are working at such a frenetic pace that death row kitchens are sites of frantic raucous activity, with depleted items being constantly scrawled on the 86 board and waiters rushing in and out yelling their orders: i got a steak au poivre, a stuffed sole, an order of fried zucchini sticks and cancel the bay scallops - governor’s pardon”
3
Americans like to suffer and are fascinated/obsessed with death. They imagine themselves in such a spot and many have thought of what they would have as a last meal. It is fitting too, since food is the only thing the American slaves are allowed to enjoy.
No question about it. I'd order an appetizer of Spanish baked baccala, and a crock of cassoulet for my entree. They really are my two favorite dishes, but more importantly they each take three days to make.
3
Morbid irony - fried food for those sent to the electric chair.
1
It’s telling how there is no interest in the last meals of their victims. Sad...
2
Schadenfreude for culinary rubberneckers.
The thought of the state putting anyone to death is medieval and, quite frankly, disgusting. How can we join the civilized world in this country?
4
My grandson is quite allergic to peanuts, and when we were having a dinner conversation about just the topic, I asked what he'd want. Not missing a beat, this 17-yr old young man exclaimed "PB&J sandwich".
10
I usually don't look at such stories but will occasionally find myself reading what someone sentenced to death had as their last meal. When I see "chocolate chip ice cream" (invariably a favorite) or some such, it humanizes them so much that all I want to do is cry.
Capital punishment. Nothing amusing about it.
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@Dorothy how about the last meal eaten by the woman or man who they murdered? The last day they set out from their house, the last trip they took in their car, the last moments as they pulled into their parking lot, not realizing their life had reached its last few moments, last breaths of air?
We are all human, killers and murdered alike. We make mistakes, sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We pay the price for it.
2
@Dorothy look at their crimes and consider their victims, and you might feel better
3
@Is No I don't.
4
Me well, it would be:
1. Pumpernickel garlic/butter toast
2. Mixed sushi and salmon lox
3. Tempura shrimp and vegetables
4. NY strip steak
5. Sparkling water with lime
6. Bing cherries
7. Cherry pie - crust made with lard
25
Locally grown, fresh, seasonal vegetables that are way out is season and special ingredients that are rare and difficult to find.
14
@Sam Francisco (Corrected version) Jimmy Rogers had a song about that.
1
@Sam Francisco Screaming Jay Hawkins has a song about that.
1
It’s funny that someone is quoted here interpreting the last meal requests as signs of agency and autonomy. I view them in the opposite way, signs that these men were pulled in their last moments to the food that formed them, that made up their memories, and that bound them to community.
28
I was curious enough myself to look at the photos and attendant information but I didn’t read the story—I find the celebrity and, indeed, adulation surrounding death row inmates a sad statement about our society.
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@Tiny Terror
I was able to read the story, but could not bring myself to look at the photos.
1
When I served in Iraq I survived mainly on MREs and occasionally some less than desirable chow hall fare whenever we happened to stop at a base long enough to catch a meal. When I read this there were some food items (radishes, peas with butter, cottage cheese) that reminded me of the weird food obsessions I would experience while I was over there. You'd be so hungry all the time a food memory would pop into your mind and you would not be able to stop thinking about it until you were able to come home and actually eat it, whether or not you actually even liked the food items were irrelevant. Some food obsessions for me were: Code Red Mountain Dew, sugar cookies, baked beans, ramen noodles from a package, pink lady apples, fried cheese curds, and an ice-cold Blue Moon with an orange slice. I'm pretty sure I had all those things within a week of returning and I probably haven't had them since.
141
@Gunnar Some years ago, I saw a cookbook compiled by women in a Nazi concentration camp. Food is a normal memory when everyday life is hell.
Thank you for your service.
16
I had same kind of fantasies while on the border between Djibouti and Somalia when I was serving as paratrooper too many years ago. A simple sirloin steak and french fries was our gastronomical paradise to dream about
6
@Gunnar
My day-to-day Jones was block cheddar cheese (never available in the jungle).
My vision of Nirvana a roast beef on sourdough sandwich (with horseradish) and a Caesar salad.
I do still indulge myself on special occasions.
6
For me, nothing. Maybe a glass of water. My appetite would be close to zero, thoughts entirely elsewhere, roaming back, way back to my time as a child, to my mom and dad, the family house, garden, my toys, and maybe a girl I was madly in love with.
63
@Stanley Jones Based on your reflective comment, I highly doubt you'd commit murder and be sentenced to death.
4
@Stanley Jones
... I'd want a glass of water an a Valium..
9
@Aaron And why do we not use the tons of surplus heroin confiscated all over country, or fentanyl?
I am against death penalty for many other reasons, but the technical imprecision is asinine.
I have found that, ask someone what they would like to eat as their last meal, and they will tell you.
Ask someone what they would like to hear as their last piece of music, and they get sad.
25
@Tim Rowe
Fates Warning's "A Pleasant Shade of Gray," if the guards were willing to indulge me. It's almost an hour long.
3
@Tim Rowe
Drive, by the Cars
@Tim Rowe
"This Bitter Earth", by Dinah Washington, "A Day in The Life", by the Beatles, or the "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven.
1
Looking at the choices of those condemned to die, I am struck with two thoughts. The first is that many of the meals seems to reflect upon a happier time in the inmate's life. A favorite meal from childhood. A meal that brings back memories--sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells--from a time before their lives took such a wretched turn. Who are we to deny anyone a last comfort before they go off into that goodnight? But the emphasis on granting a last request seems to be a salve to soothe our own collective guilt at sanctioning someone's death. We killed him. There is a possibility that we were wrong to do so. But at least we can rest assured we treated him decently up to the very end.
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@cpeacock @cpeacock
Who are we to deny anyone a last comfort before they go off into that goodnight?
Well, if one looks at the details of the crime, photos, lives of the victims, their affected famililes....
But I've always felt that if a person was going to be executed, they better be 100% guilty with overwhelming evidence-which hasn't always been the case.
7
@cpeacock
Who are we to deny anyone a last comfort before they go off into that goodnight?
Well, if one looks at the details of the crime, photos, lives of the victims, their affected famililes....
But I've always felt that if a person was going to be executed, they better be 100% guilty with overwhelming evidence-which hasn't always been the case.
3
We are all on death row. We are imprisoned by the belief "I am the body." Because of this many eat as if there is no tomorrow. Hence the obesity epidemic. Expansion of self at the densest level.
There is nothing here that is unchanging. We can't keep any of what is experienced. All that one has is a singular, subjective, conscious perspective. And even that cannot truly be shared because one can never be completely sure that others "out there" are also having the same experience. Weird. I'm going to get another cup of coffee.
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@Peter
Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes form. So there is a certain kind of permanence in that. All of the iron in our blood was produced by supernova explosions. In many ways we are simply rearranged stardust. And to stardust we all return. And doesn't the fact the "nothing is unchanging" offer it's own kind of paradoxical certainty?
Personally, I believe that love transcends death, and the self. Although, I could never prove it scientifically.
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@Peter
Obese Marlon Brando living rich rewarding 80 yrs. Sadly Walter Payton despite healthy diet, vigorous working out ritual, living half as long. Two anecdotes but..
,
1
@Chicago Guy
Good Gawd man. Lighten up.
It's interesting that the New Testament isn't alluded to in all this.
For obvious reasons, Jesus Christ was vehemently against Capital Punishment. But it's also true that if it must be, then he certainly would have petitioned for the right to a dignified Last Supper.
Unlike some commentators, I don't find the last meal concept particularly morbid. The death penalty, yes. But not the supper.
To me, the whole thing has a deeply dualistic symbolism in that it offers up a kind of final dignity for the accused, and at the same time, a final condemnation, in that it symbolizes a compassion for human life that the recipient has very likely so violated throughout his or her life, that their's must now be taken.
It's almost the states way of saying, "If only things had been different".
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@Chicago Guy
The penalty and the deterrent value only have significance to those who enjoy life and so crave something that pleases anyone who enjoys life. Same goes for those who impose the death penalty.
@Chicago Guy The Last Supper was the Passover Seder.
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@Casual Observer
Since when has "enjoying life" been a requisite to not wanting to lose it? Lots of people suffer, with next to no real "enjoyment" in their lives. That doesn't mean they're indifferent to losing it.
The idea that by simply not "enjoying life", the deterrent value of the death penalty is rendered insignificant is positively absurd.
2
For me, it would have to be the meal my mother made at least once a week throughout my childhood: roast chicken, white rice, and plenty of black pepper on both.
23
The state records the fine details of the inmate including the smallest details of food choices. However, by the time we get to the main course, we switch from high definition recording to an impressionist painting by the visually impaired. Bucklew had a tracheostomy and in the setting of his pharyngeal vascular tumors, I doubt the meal was tasty. The emphasis on these trivial details pushes the debate away from the much more important question about the use of capital punishment within our criminal justice system. I have been to death row in many states and I have never met Lex Luthor. These are not super-villains and meal choices should not be given more attention than the method of execution itself.
7
Mr. Treadwell was right when he said, “The line between news and entertainment in the U.S. has become somewhat blurred.” It is most unfortunate that so many people are unable to make the distinction.
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@Jane
What distinction? There hasn't been any since November, 2016.
3
Missing from the list is Ledell Lee, who requested Holy Communion for his last meal. That would be mine, as well. https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59036ff2e4b084f59b49f88b/amp
12
Of course, we all have a last meal...
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@James
Sure but you're aware that the concept of a prisoner's last meal is unique and remarkable; they get the choice of what to eat. Our last meal is what we happened to eat before our demise, often unaware it's our last.
10
@Left Coast and of course, the victims of these people never got to choose a last meal.
1
@Left Coast
Nelson Rockefeller's last meal mirroring my ideal regarding going out with a bang😉☺
4
Ah, ritual! We love our rituals don't we?
Beef Wellington, chunky mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob with butter, mixed green salad with oil and vinegar dressing, cherry pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert, or, perhaps, raspberry sorbet. And a magnum of Dom Perignon 1985, or, if booze is not allowed, a large Coca-Cola with chipped ice.
(Or just a large sheet cake with a hacksaw in it)
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@Chicago Guy
Fllled with unspeakable anxiety facing certain death, you would not be able to eat a morsel of it.
1
@Chicago Guy
Love the magnum of champagne and the hacksaw. You’re funny!
@Chicago Guy
Love the magnum of champagne and the hacksaw. You’re funny!
Have not read the article yet, but seeing the headline I remember a comedian joking that in that situation, he would "request the all-you-can-eat salad bar."
17
In the US (I don’t know about the handful of middle-eastern & African countries who also use the “death penalty”), we execute people basically for public entertainment. It does nothing to reduce or deter crime, nothing to rehabilitate, nothing to balance the losses of victims, nothing to make us safer, nothing to establish moral standards. And it is exorbitantly expensive. But it lets us pretend that we have done something for the victims we were unable or unwilling to protect, and that we are better than the criminals who have supposedly received received what they deserve. For many, it seems to be entirely a question of feeling superior to the "liberals" who would treat convicts as human beings. Last-meal porn just serves to normalize the practice, and to make us feel superior.
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@Martin
Calling it "entertainment" is an extremely cynical view.
And I don't know the actual figure, but I'm guessing that the victims would probably be about split in term of their preference for life in prison or lethal injection for those who have taken the life of a loved one.
I think, for some, having the monster put to death would definitely bring some modicum of relief.
15
@Chicago Guy: Except for those who were wrongfully convicted. We don’t know how many there are, but more cases keep coming to light because of the work of groups like The Innocence Project. And isn’t that the point, to avoid the possibility of executing the wrong person?
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@Chicago Guy
Humans are not monsters.
They do monstrous things.
But to commit the same crime against one, for taking human life, is the epitome of hypocrisy, to say nothing of the hundreds of innocent people, usually black, killed by the state . It is barbaric, vengeful and wrong.
My own fiancé was killed in a mugging.
I have forgiven his killer.
That was 35 years ago.
11
Will this book go into the “food section” or “criminal justice section” of local bookstores.
8
How about Blowfish?
9
The death row inmate requested only a plate of mushrooms.
The warden asked why just that when he could have anything.
The condemned man answered: “Well warden, up to now I’ve always been afraid of them”.
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Considering that we wrongfully put to death countless people in the US, mostly black people not given proper justice, this fascination with the last meal is a perverse practice in oppression. Perhaps the intent is to empathize but the impact is perverse.
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@Skrelnick
“Countless?”
Unlikely.
3
Reading last statements @ Texas DoJ’s website will make your own dinner sit like a rock in the gut. Especially as we now know how many on death row have been found innocent.
8
Artist Richard Kamler also did this, only he sculpted replicas of the inmates meals in lead: http://www.richardkamler.com/last-meal
2
Painter Julie Green of Corvallis, Oregon, has been working for more than a decade on a series of paintings on ceramic plates portraying the last suppers of death row inmates. To see these hundreds of plates displayed together is very powerful. greenjuliecom
4
These killers didn't offer their victims any last meals. Why should they be provided with one?
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Because, some of us are not filled with feelings of vengeance and hatred. Because some of us would abolish the death penalty altogether, and treat other humans with dignity and respect, regardless of who they are. Some of us.
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@Steve A reluctance to put ourselves on an equal level with these people is considered healthy. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and a social tolerance for people too enthusiastic about such a practice is likely to produce more grotesque fetishists than the initial offense.
Which is to say - we offer them better because we strive to be better than they are, and someone who lacks such goals is generally considered unacceptable in most social circles, as they mostly call to mind Percy Wetmore from The Green Mile. We all collectively tend to lose our appetites around such people.
11
How do you know? And are you sure none of them are innocent?
6
I despise this article. This voyeuristic description of last meals takes no position on the inhumanity of state sponsored execution, which does nothing except help normalize capital punishment. Why the NYT would print this escapes me. Horrible editorial decision. Will there be a companion book on the last meals of the criminals' murdered victims?
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@larry bennett
I'm not so sure about this being an inhumane piece.
While reading this, I was thinking about the inhumanity of capital punishment - especially the pair who were executed and the Mass governor reopened the case.
12
Hopefully, I will never be in this situation, but if I was, I'd have:
Vietnamese pho
Pork spring rolls
Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream
Mezcal Negroni to drink
6
"He put the recipes in a book, “Meals To Die For.”"
Hahahahahahahaha!
4
Feels like capital punishment porn.
It's astonishing that so many are so enamored of our version of justice in a diminishing number of red states.
Our brotherhood with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and India continues.
17
@JS India executes far fewer people than Texas does. In India it is reserved for "rarest of the rare cases." Don't just assume superiority
not about death row last meals but an artistic, foodie version, "My Last Supper" of famous chefs:
https://www.mylastsupper.com/
Geez, some of those high-cholesterol, high-fat, high-sodium requests could kill you . . .
38
America should have death row inmates work in call centers where fans can call in for chats with their favorites. We've already got competing Ted Bundy shows, true crime daily calendars, and My Favorite Murder is a multi-million dollar a year cash cow podcast.
Why not let bored voyeurs pay $200 for a murderer to call them on their birthday? I'd say put the proceeds into the public defenders office, but that might deplete the talent pool.
4
Aldous Huxley’s “last meal” was a tab of LSD.
8
Existential porn—that's what fascination with death-row meals strikes me as; a titillative, palatable, and shallow warping of deep truths we're uncomfortable with facing directly.
6
Strange piece for a British/European, and more particularly Observer journalist, in that it is oddly unpolitical.For a start he fails to make the point that he himself lives on a country (the UK) protected - until now by the EU Charter, Art.2 which reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to life.
(2) No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.
One of the reasons that the right have wanted Brexit is because of their extreme ( and nasty) disavowal of the concept of Human Rights, especially in the EU or through the European Court.
And of course the Last Meal thing. Well this has Great Entertainment Value. But also, you have to admit, is prurient and deeply creepy.
Clever way of marketing a book though -- and to a US audience likely to read it. And for that matter likely to do so uncritically, given the shameful and inhuman nature of the event so approved by many good 'Christians' in the USA.
6
@G Rayns
Yeah, but they won't commit the same atrocities again will they? I speak with 100% accuracy.
4
@G Rayns
Yeah, but they won't commit the same atrocities again will they? I speak with 100% accuracy.
1
@G Rayns
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The alternative of lock ing someone up for a lifetime is a worse penalty than death itself, not to mention the enormous cost.
1
I remember Gaceys execution being in the news when I was a child. The notion of the last meal morbidly fascinated and horrified me; it still does. It seemed so malapropos. I couldn’t imagine anyone eating a meal knowing it’s their last.
I would be even more interested in a denouement of how much of any of these meals was eaten.
5
It is not hard to understand the preoccupation in the US with the "last meal" since the US is one of the few developed countries that actively practices the death penalty.
4
Many prisons are located miles away from good food. Inmates typically have to choose between what is available at the nearest highway exit or at the prison kitchen. This, even more than race and class, limit last meal choices to fried foods, etc.
19
The death penalty is little more than societal revenge and the legal system certainly has enough faults that legal protections ensuring only the guilty and only the guilty are put to death so the talk about last meals, or whatever is ghoulish.
12
The question for me is a moot one. I'm just trying to get through the world trying to matter and not hurting anyone.
11
If I, on a regular basis were responsible for the termination of a defenseless man's life, I think my food consumption would have me looking like Bader Ginsburg rather than the other eight responsible parties.
4
@G Gideon
He wasn't so defenseless when he was raping, torturing, gouging, cutting, burning, and murdering all those children.
11
@Matt
Agreed. But in our frenzy for revenge, we put ourselves in his shoes. We murder a person whom we have rendered defenseless. Whatever he may have done, we are no less evil.
3
I’m surprised that nobody asked for a glass of wine or a beer with their last meal. I’m assuming that it just wasn’t allowed?
15
@Juliet; I am assuming the authorities want the condemned to be fully aware of the execution process. I believe the 1957 movie 'Paths of Glory' covered that pretty well.
3
@Juliet NO alcohol allowed in prison, period.
1
I would never judge how anyone might prefer to spend his or her last hours, in confinement. before execution. That being emphatically said, I find the whole concept of enjoying a "freely" ordered last meal implausible and obscene. Doubtless others would disagree.
27
This article made me think of Francois Mitterrand's last meal. If a prisoner on death row requested ortolan's for his or her last meal, would the request be honored?
5
The photography in this article was fantastic. Truly represented the personality of the inmate. Beautifully done
33
I remember a photographic spread in The Atlantic years ago of prisoner's last meals which remains with me to this day in its ghoulish-ness. I always wanted to ask the guests at a dinner party - before we ate the meal we prepared to please write it all down on a piece of paper. We have probably had hundreds of friends for a meal over the years and I think it would be fun to look at them. My wife says no way, that is too....ghoulish.
9
Maybe the contents of those meals contributed to their inclination to murder people. As one wag put it in a different context, they
"contain the four basic food groups: sugar, grease, starch, and alcohol". The last item was forbidden, apparently. Too bad. It would have been the only thing that could have made them feel better as they headed toward the gurney or electric chair.
5
@Mike Roddy, Several years ago during a brain/spinal MRI I had a claustrophobic panic attack in the machine. Since then, my neurologist prescribes two Valium for me, one about an hour before and one right when I go into the machine. I think I will ask him if I could drink two martinis ahead of time.
7
years ago my sister attempted to take an inmate on death row a cake she had baked. She was told no. Of course. But meals, last meal, final words, final details prior to his execution were all diminished when she told me no one picked up his body. There was a cemetary on the prison grounds that more than many bodies of the executed were buried.
16
@Julie Why did she bake a cake for a death row inmate? Really just asking out of curiosity.
4
There's also an uncomfortable tension about the last meal being "guilt-free" in our world obsessed with body image.
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